Threats to Democracy

After reading about Tom Cruise being banned from filming at certain German military sites because of his belief in Scientology, I was a bit outraged at first, despite my abhorrence of their beliefs, which I think are crazy and nonsensical.

Germany has barred the makers of a movie about a plot to kill Adolf Hitler from filming at German military sites because its star Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, the Defence Ministry said on Monday.

Cruise, also one of the film's producers, is a member of the Church of Scientology which the German government does not recognise as a church. Berlin says it masquerades as a religion to make money, a charge Scientology leaders reject.

So far this seems very unreasonable from the the German Government, to target a faith based group like that, akin to the Jews perhaps? No, it is not that at all, Scientology are part of Holocaust denial and masquerading, blaming it (the Holocaust) on Psychologists. Germany is just enforcing its rights as a state to use its own systems of law, and its right to debar anyone whom they see as unfit from entering the country. If Mr. Cruise was a German citizen, this case would be different, he most likely would end up in jail like Neo-Nazis do. Is this unjustified? No I don't think so, although the reporting of it is unclear at best and confuses people. The German Ministry does not wish to persecute Mr. Cruise, but as he is a member of an organization who break a law going back even before L. Ron Hubbard created the myth of Scientology, a post-World War II law.

What is the picture above you may ask? Well that is the "Threats to Democracy", a picture taken in Nuremburg, Germany (Photo Credit: Caesura). Once the bastion of hate that was the Nuremburg Rallies of WWII, it lists (left to right) Islamic Extremism, Scientology and Organised Crime as the biggest threats Western Democracy faces in the 21st Century, and I couldn't agree more. The are all forms of extremism practised by the fringes of Western Society, and contrary to Western values of the rule of law, freedom of faith, democracy etc.

Leopard: Worth the wait?

If you haven't heard of Apple's latest Operating system, have a look at Wikipedia Article on Mac OS X Leopard. Here are some of the features:

• Time Machine: an automated backup utility which allows the user to restore files that have been deleted or replaced by another version of a file.
• Front Row currently only available with the purchase of a new Mac, but will be included with Leopard. It has been reworked to closely resemble the interface used by the Apple TV.
• Photo Booth, currently only available with the purchase of a new Mac, but will be included with Leopard.
• Spaces: an implementation of "virtual desktops" (individually called "spaces"), allowing users to have multiple desktops per user and be able to place certain applications and windows in a desktop. Users can organize certain Spaces for certain applications (i.e., one for work-related tasks and one for entertainment) and switch between them. Exposé will work inside Spaces, allowing the user to see at a glance all desktops on one screen.^[9])
• Spotlight incorporates additional search capabilities such as Boolean operators, as well as the ability to search other computers (with permissions).
• Redesigned Finder: a redesigned Finder based on iTunes 7.
• New Desktop: a redesigned desktop, which is comprised of a redesigned 3-D dock which uses a new feature called Stacks, as well as a new menu-bar which adapts itself to the desktop so menu-bar text is easily readable.
• Quick Look This allows documents to be viewed without actually opening them in an external application.
• Universal access: significant improvements to applications including VoiceOver, along with increased support for Braille, closed captioning and a new text-to-speech engine.
• Enhancements to Mail including the additions of RSS feeds, Stationery, Notes, and to-dos. To-dos use a system-wide service that is available to all applications.
• Dashboard enhancements, including Webclip, a feature that allows users to turn a part of any web page into a live Dashboard widget, and Dashcode to help developers code widgets.^[14]
• iChat enhancements, including multiple logins, animated icons, and tabbed chats, similar to features present in Pidgin, Adium and the iChat plugin Chax; iChat Theater, allowing users to incorporate images from iPhoto, presentations from Keynote, and videos from QuickTime into chats; and Backdrops, which are similar to chroma keys, but use a real-time difference matte technique which does not require a green or blue screen. iChat will also implement desktop sharing, a feature previously available with Apple Remote Desktop.^[15][16][17]
• Enhancements to Parental controls include the ability to place restrictions on use of the Internet and to set parental controls from anywhere using remote setup.
• iCal calendar sharing and group scheduling.
• Leopard will also include the software assistant known as Boot Camp, which has been available as a beta release download for Mac OS X v10.4 from Apple's website since April 5, 2006.This assists the installation of Windows XP or Windows Vista to a separate partition (or separate internal drive) on Intel-based Macs.
• Menu Bar The new menu bar is now transparent and is no longer rounded like all previous Mac OS versions.
• Safari 3.0 will be included.

While some seem to be not impressed by Leopard, it is by all accounts an OS upgrade, with every major application recieving attention. To me I am overjoyed the finder is getting a revamp, though I am not certain following iTunes layout is such a good idea. I think this is Steve Jobs (CEO. Apple Inc) idea to "switch" windows people since they already use iTunes, although I am not sure it is the right path. I choose Mac OS X because its unique, it has a fresh take on how a user interacts with a computer, moreso than Linux (which adopts tried and true in the case of Gnome and KDE), and certainly Windows which has only tweaked the look since Windows 95: its the same concept. The fanning out of dock icons, and grouping them won't be used by the vast majority of users: its the same reason they don't use "smart" folders: its a feature that has little in the way of wide appeal. I know the same can be said of the dashboard, and I personally will most likely end up buying and using fanning out and collections in Leopard, but my experience of novices is that they are afraid of the unknown.

Perhaps why I wrote this is that I don't understand what people really expected from Apple. Comments such as "everything in Leopard has been done before", well I think this statement is true of every consumer Operating System: things (generally) don't get tried out on novice users. So back to my question: is it worth the wait? Look at the above list and decide for yourself. I feel Tiger is good enough (then again Technology never stays still, Bill Gates "128K RAM is good enough for anyone should tell us that), and I predict Leopard will face adoption like Windows does: Tech buffs will buy the boxed retail version (I include myself in this), while everybody else will get it through a new computer purchase.

HP Photosmart R927 Review

I just bought a HP Photosmart R927, an 8 Megapixel camera from Hewlett-Packard. While I had seen and briefly used one before, I was excited again upon using my own one (as all tech people are [read: geeks]). First of all don't confuse me as anyway into photography: I'm not and far from it. I had a criteria in mind when I purchased and this was it:

• Must work under any OS (Windows [a given], Mac and Linux [latter two I only use])

Every camera I have come across mounts as a disc drive [think looking at files on a cd or your local computer], but there is also PTP or "Picture Transfer Protocol" in other words it doesn't appear as picture files, rather PTP triggers your computer to open your camera in your photo application. I was unsure if this PTP would work under Mac or Linux, since I had only briefly seen it as an option in digiKam. It turns out on Mac there is Image Capture, and Ubuntu (My Linux distribution of choice) it automatically detects it and asks to import photos into F-Spot.

• It must have decent Image Quality

Now decent to me means decent as in "a 128kbps MP3 sounds the same as a cd"! I am not talking uber-quality, far from it. There is already a Samsung 6MP camera in my household, and it more than does the job, despite occasionally messing up focus and being nearly two years old. I want a "point and click" with decent image quality, and I believe we are mostly there with todays cameras (compared to old 35mm film. I know only SLR come under the term "decent image quality" to some [professionals].

• It must have portability

Phone cameras are an indication of the future, there won't be any real cameras besides ones used by professionals eventually. Why? Portability. People don't want 20 devices and the weight attached to it, I have trouble making sure wallet, keys and my phone are on me, and a camera adds to this striuggle today.This is the same reason people are ditching cd's for iPods: portability.

Now for my review:

The R927 looks good, but with camera sizes decreasing, it ends up being bigger than most. Its brushed metal feel is somewhat amusing, maybe a tribute to Apple Computers Brushed Metal theme in iTunes? The picture quality is great, and it certainly matches and beats many other cameras I have tried. My R927 came with a dock, and the camera itself has only one port: a usb one [This as I am after finding out is not true, the one port on the camera is non-standard usb it seems, so it can only be used through a dock, rather annoying if your travelling it seems to me!]. I really liked that fact as it clears up clutter and removes confusion, with only one slot, for one cable (I am thinking of many other similar sized cameras than try to have the kitchen sink with a port for video, a second memory card port, usb port, basically: every port possible).

Its screen is something to behold: bright, clean, clear and crisp. This apparently comes at a cost though, in a PC World review ( in which this camera ranked #2 out of #10 "Point and Click Cameras"), they said it had the shortest life at 114 photos of any in the top 10. Since I only have mine a few hours, I can't comment on this yet, but one thing I will say: the battery is easily replaceable: I found the exact same 3.7 V Li-ion battery in my Bluetooth GPS Receiver (a low end one), so buying a backup battery they said might be a good option.

The Cameras photo manipulation is full featured, as are the menus in this camera. You can crop, change contrast, brightness, add frames and dozens of other features without touching photo editing software on a computer. Is that a plus or minus? Depends on the user really, I might use it the odd time, but as someone who likes long lasting batteries: it won't be too often I will. It modes are variful and plenty also: beach mode, auto mode, landscape, portrait, theatre, panaroma etc. Panorama is a lot of fun, but it takes a while for the camera to "stitch" the photos, and if made out of high quality images: beware, the panorma won't be as of the same quality. Document Mode puzzled me, the camera says it captures text clearly. This wasn't the case in my experience and with no text recognition software in the camera or accompanying software, one could be left typing a long document from looking at an image of one!!

It's design and layout are elegant and useful. The main navigation d-pad feels a bit clicky (with a clicky sound to match) and the zoom is controlled by the far-edges of an upside-down "L" shape. It has a: Flash Button, Contrast Button, Sharing Button. Preview button and On/Off. The sharing button is linked to HP's software and allows you to select photos to email, print and share upon your connection to a computer. I found this annoying as I do things manually, but some average users might consider this a bonus. I got a dock, a power cable, usb cable, and UK & Ireland plus a European plug within the camera's very nice package.

Overall I'd give it an 8.8/10 so far. Battery life leads me to lower its score somewhat, and the fact that the camera is bulkier than most. Other than that it is a great buy, and well recommended thus far. I will update this if I ever have any problems with it!